Coley's Toxins as an immunotherapy treatment for sarcoma
My wife has just completed 1 week of Coleys Toxins. It was basically uneventful and quite predictable according to the MBVax treatment protocol. Each treatment successfully achieved fever, while minimizing unpleasant side effects of chills / shakes by pre-warming the patient.
If you haven't already, I truly, truly believe that you take a serious look based on the following:-
(1) the historical weight of evidence for Coleys Toxins (especially for sarcomas!)
(2) the extremely promising data collected by MBVax
(3) the fact that sarcoma patients can receive treatment TODAY (although with some extra effort)
NPR's people's pharmacy recently interviewed MBVax's CEO. This is a must-listen:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2010/08/14/780-cancer-and-the-immune-system/
There are also other interviews of scientists at:
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2010/08/07/751-coleys-toxin-cancer-and-immunology/
The interview of Dr. Matzinger is particularly helpful as a primer to immunotherapy
Seriously, for those of us who have no other options and heading towards the so-called "inevitable", you NEED to take a long, hard look at Coleys. I speak this from my heart, while trying to be as objective as possible.
The point about Coleys that SCREAMS out to me is that they are seeing complete durable regressions for cases where conventional medicine offers no hope. That is what I got from reading the historical records, as well as from listening to Don MacAdam's interview (where he talked about 8/19 breast cancers achieving this). This simply means that MBVax along with all the numerous doctors & William Coley are either liars, lunatics or they else they have a tremendous asset for cancer patients that is hardly being exploited.
For example, consider the grim prognosis conventional treatment offers to a metastatic sarcoma patient. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you the numbers. Then, look at the 8 out of 19 complete regression breast cancer cases with MBVax. Add to that the historical belief that Coleys is even better for sarcomas!
In fact, Coley's was used by conventional doctors around the US and in other continents for decades. William Coley was head of the bone sarcoma unit at Sloan Kettering's predecessor hospital! We're not talking about some obscure alternative voodoo treatment. On top of that, all evidence points to Coleys as being very safe, with no long term toxicity & manageable side effects. In contrast to chemo, patients get stronger and less pain with time!
In my book, it is an outright crime that Coley's Toxins isn't being used for sarcoma cases -- at least for cases where there is little to no chance of a cure with standard treatment . If you are a sarcoma oncologist, I challenge you to objectively examine the evidence for Coley's for yourself, and not rely on what others have said. Relying on others is fine for something with clinical trial data. However, a large body of evidence for Coley's is not in the form of clinical trial data (especially since it was widely used before the time of the modern clinical trial).
The argument that "if Coleys works, sarcoma oncologists would be using it by now" is probably flawed. Examine the evidence for yourself and you may be surprised - perhaps as suprised as William Coley. Talk to MBVax. Make like Dr. William Coley and go track down and talk to patients who completed durable complete regressions. Talk to Dr. Lloyd Old. Talk to Dr. Vikas Sukhatme . Read the Helen Coley Nauts monographs. Take into account the batch variability problems. Take into account the impenetrable financial barrier that automatically excludes something as cheap/easy as Coleys from making it through the FDA trial process.
Why not at least try Coleys especially in cases where chemo is proven to merely extend life with no hope of cure, at the cost of extremely bad side effects (for example, see this report that High Dose Ifosfamide does not increase survival for advanced soft tissue sarcoma patients).
According to MBVax, a patient in the US can initiate Coley's Toxins treatment and get Coley Fluid under compassionate use. However, practically, it's hard to do unless you have an MD or oncologist who is willing to support. Even if we could find someone, that person would not have any experience in dealing with any potential complications. So at the cost of $5500USD/week, I'm having my wife treated in Tijuana, Mexico, the land of medical freedom.